In-air Knotting of Rope by a Dual-arm Multi-finger Robot
Abstract
In the present paper, we propose a method for in-air knotting by a dual-arm, multi-finger robot. Most previous studies about knotting by robots assume that the rope is placed on a table. However, in-air knotting requires more skillful hand manipulations, such as swapping ropes between the right and left hands. Therefore, we herein focus on hand motion and first extract the essential hand motions for knotting, referred to herein as skill motions, by observing human knotting procedures. Next, hardware with the capability of executing these skill motions is developed. Finally, experiments are conducted to confirm that several types of knots can be tied in the air using the proposed method.
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Vinh et al. and Kudoh et al. apply trajectory replay methods to achieve knot-tying tasks.
“Vinh et al. (2012) [91] and Kudoh et al. (2015) [105] apply such methods to achieve knot-tying tasks”
From Data-Driven Robotic Manipulation of Cloth-like Deformable Objects: The Present, Challenges and Future Prospects (2023) · cites this paper as [105]
Most knot tying systems act either on the table or in the air.
“Most KT systems act either on the table [243,244,275,282,286,287] or in the air [52,91,105,239,284,285] as shown in Figure 6.”
From Data-Driven Robotic Manipulation of Cloth-like Deformable Objects: The Present, Challenges and Future Prospects (2023) · cites this paper as [105]
The common strategy for producing a topological representation is to use the extracted intersection and segments of the rope from thinned binary images.
“The common strategy for producing TR is to use the extracted intersection and segments of the rope from thinned binary images [61,105,275,282,284,286].”
From Data-Driven Robotic Manipulation of Cloth-like Deformable Objects: The Present, Challenges and Future Prospects (2023) · cites this paper as [105]
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Hand eye coordination in rope handling
INABA, M., & INOUE, H. (1985) · Journal of the Robotics Society of Japan · doi:10.7210/jrsj.3.538 · Cited by 95 · see citing works
Representation for knot-tying tasks
Takamatsu, J., Morita, T., Ogawara, K., Kimura, H., & Ikeuchi, K. (2006) · IEEE Transactions on Robotics · doi:10.1109/tro.2005.855988 · Cited by 79 · see citing works
Hand-eye coordination in rope handling
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Flexible rope manipulation by dual manipulator system using vision sensor
Matsuno, T., Fukuda, T., & Arai, F. (2002) · IEEE/ASME International Conference on Advanced Intelligent Mechatronics · doi:10.1109/aim.2001.936748 · Cited by 60 · see citing works
Motion planning for dynamic knotting of a flexible rope with a high-speed robot arm
Yamakawa, Y., Namiki, A., & Ishikawa, M. (2010) · 2010 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems · doi:10.1109/iros.2010.5651168 · Cited by 57 · see citing works
Knotting manipulation of a flexible rope by a multifingered hand system based on skill synthesis
Yamakawa, Y., Namiki, A., Ishikawa, M., & Shimojo, M. (2008) · 2008 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems · doi:10.1109/iros.2008.4650802 · Cited by 29 · see citing works
Manipulation Planning for Knotting/Unknotting and Tightly Tying of Deformable Linear Objects
Wakamatsu, H., TSUMAYA, A., Arai, E., & Hirai, S. (2006) · Proceedings - IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation/Proceedings · doi:10.1109/robot.2005.1570489 · Cited by 23 · see citing works
A new strategy for making a knot with a general-purpose arm
Vinh, T. V., Tomizawa, T., Kudoh, S., & Suehiro, T. (2012) · 2012 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation · doi:10.1109/icra.2012.6224852 · Cited by 21 · see citing works
Self-citationKnotting/raveling manipulation of linear objects
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Modeling, learning, perception, and control methods for deformable object manipulation
Yin, H., Varava, A., & Kragic, D. (2021) · Science Robotics · doi:10.1126/scirobotics.abd8803 · Cited by 299 · see citing works
In-air Knotting of Rope using Dual-Arm Robot based on Deep Learning
Suzuki, K., Kanamura, M., Suga, Y., Mori, H., & Ogata, T. (2021) · 2021 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS) · doi:10.1109/iros51168.2021.9635954 · Cited by 31 · see citing works
Kadi, H. A., & Terzić, K. (2023) · Sensors · doi:10.3390/s23052389 · Cited by 19 · see citing works
“Most KT systems act either on the table [243,244,275,282,286,287] or in the air [52,91,105,239,284,285] as shown in Figure 6.”
BackgroundMethodInfluentialA Perspective on Open Challenges in Deformable Object Manipulation
McKennaa, R. P., & Oyekan, J. (2026) · arXiv · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2602.22998
“For instance, [111] developed a method for a two-armed robot to learn aerial knot-tying by breaking the task into six fundamental motions—grasping, releasing, double grasping, wrapping, twisting, and sliding learned through human demonstrations.”
- Authors
- Kudoh, S., Gomi, T., Katano, R., Tomizawa, T., & Suehiro, T.
- Affiliations
- University of Electro-Communications (JP)
- ORCID
- Suehiro, Takashi
- Venue
- 2015 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS)
- Publisher
- IEEE
- Published
- 2015-09
- Pages
- 6202-6207
- ISSN
- 2153-0858 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2199659798
- Cited by
- 23
- References
- 11
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2025: 2 · 2023: 2 · 2022: 4 · 2021: 5 · 2019: 4 · 2018: 2 · 2016: 3
- FWCI
- 2.33
- Type
- conference paper
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS) (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- Japan Society for the Promotion of Science
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Engineering › Control and Systems Engineering › Robot Manipulation and Learning
- Physical Sciences › Engineering › Biomedical Engineering › Soft Robotics and Applications
- Physical Sciences › Engineering › Control and Systems Engineering › Robotic Mechanisms and Dynamics
- Keywords
- dual-arm robot, rope manipulation, hand movement, knot tying
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